Gaming & Culture —

Win a free Nintendo 3DS XL in our sweepstakes

Our US readers have a chance to win a 3DS XL and New Super Mario Bros. 2.

When Nintendo decided to increase the size of the 3DS, it meant business. If you read the Ars Technica review, you’ll know that the 3DS XL’s new larger screen and ergonomic feel makes it the preferred way to experience 3DS games and apps. And if you’re coveting one of these new handhelds, we have you covered.

Ars Technica is giving away one Nintendo 3DS XL along with a copy of New Super Mario Bros. 2 to one lucky person.

Though we would like to open up this sweepstakes to all Ars Technica readers, you must be at least 18 years old and a resident of the 50 United States and District of Columbia to participate this time around.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Click here for full rules. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Nintendo.

How to enter

Here’s all you need to do to have a chance to win the 3DS XL: simply share your love for handheld game systems with us by commenting on this post.

If there’s vintage hardware that you still love to play, tell us what games you play on it. You can even post a picture of yourself with your game system (though posting a picture is not required to win). And if you don't have a handheld game system yet? No worries, just tell us how much you dig gaming in general. The key thing to remember is that by entering a comment on this post, you can enter to win. Also, don't forget that Ars Technica subscribers are automatically included in the sweepstakes. And again, winners must live in the continental US.

The sweepstakes begins Wednesday, August 22 at 9am CT, and closes Friday, August 25 at 9pm CT.

Listing image by Aurich Lawson

Cesar Torres
Cesar is the Social Editor at Ars Technica. His areas of expertise are in online communities, human-computer interaction, usability, and e-reader technology. Cesar lives in New York City. Emailcesar.torres@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Urraca

What I love about the 3DS is the Streetpass Feature. I love being able to connect with new people with Streetpass, playing the mini-games and collecting new hats. Meeting new people is probably the best feature as I've been able to connect to more people than ever before. I was even able to move into a new career thanks to the Streetpass feature, believe it or not.

I am definitely interested in seeing the future of the 3DS and of the Streetpass feature, as I think it oculd lead to a new generation of portable social gaming.

But yes, that's why I love portable gaming and why I love the 3DS in particular.

Still love my afterburner-enhanced Gameboy Advance. Good form factor for the hands, ran on AA batteries (so you could easily change as needed during a long trip/flight), and the afterburner fixed the lighting issue that marred an otherwise great system.

Also have a soft spot for the Gameboy Color that got tossed from the car during an accident, sat underwater for three days submerged in a muddy ditch, and yet still worked just fine after being opened up, cleaned out, and dried off. Nintendo makes some remarkably rugged handheld hardware!

My first handheld was some awful off-brand system that was one of those "101 Games" sorts of deals, with Pong and Space Invaders and Tetris, and all these other 8-bit wonders. Somehow it got either lost or stolen, and I graduated to a Gameboy with games like Pokemon and Rampage. I always wanted to get that old one back, though..

Mobile gaming for me has moved to iPhone, which is good enough, but I do miss physical buttons for some game types. I am also missing out on being able to play the latest Mario and Zelda games, since I haven't bought a 3DS. The first New Super Mario Bros was enough to get me to buy a DS Lite.

Ever since I got the first game boy for Christmas when I was six, the Nintendo Handhelds have always held my heart. Now I play mostly PC games, but I still kick around the DSi for some old school gaming action.

I've had various portable gaming systems over the years, but my favorite has to be the Sega GameGear. If it were updated with a modern CPU, screen and battery it could still hold its own against the modern systems. It was years ahead of its competitors when it came out.

I remember back when I was in 3rd grade in 1997, my mom bought me a blue game boy color and I was just amazed. I played pokemon on it constantly (and still do sadly, though on the newer nintendo DS.) I love handheld gaming, it really reminds me of being a kid.

Since I am entering on my daughter's behalf so I am going to write about both if our experiences with gaming.

Warning I am prone to boring ramble and nearly wrote an essay on the history of handheld gaming on my fist attempt.

Me: My handheld gaming experience is pretty old and dry. In the late 70's early 80's I had two mechanical single game systems.

A baseball game (before I realized I didn't like sports, you would have thought I would have learned after the track car incident). A red LED on a mechanical arm sliding under a darken screen would simulate a pitch. LEDs and different sounds let you know if you scored a hit, strike, or ball. A line lit up if you hit a home run. You manually had to slide off a cover to have a man on base.

The other one I had was called Hit and Missile. Two strips of film with aircraft on them to shoot down with your missile launcher at the bottom. It had only two lights, one for the missile and one for the explosion. The thing was heavy before you put a pair of C batteries in it. It was pretty solid too. You could probably beat someone to death with it, then play a few rounds before the police arrived (no 911 back then). Here is a video of it.

The next few were handhelds I wanted and managed play with but never owned.

Mattel's Battlestar Galactica Space Alert finally brought me into the LED era. Fire your red LED blips at the enemy inbound red LED blips. If a Cylon shot hit the Galactica you lost. I got to play with it in the store.

I now present the handheld that completely got away from me. The one I never even got to see in real life let alone touch or play with. 10 years before the Nintendo launched the Gameboy there was the Milton Bradley Microvision. This would have been my home away from my Atari 2600, which in turn was my home away from the arcade. Though its 16X16 monochrome display that made a Nokia 1100's display look like High Definition in comparison but I loved the idea of a picture drawn by pixels over fixed picture LCD games even back then. Besides changing cartridges games came with different keyboard covers to label the buttons you needed and block the ones you didn't.

I often wondered how things would have gone if they either partnered with or were bought by Atari. To think Atari could have had trident of arcade, home, and mobile gaming in the early 80's if they would have worked things right. I think Microvision may have been the first game company to be victims of ignoring the adult gamer market. If I had been running Microvision I would have been selling them in college book stores, truck stops, stores near military bases, and marine & RV supply shops in addition to the toy departments.

My last stand alone hand held game that I had was a Star Fox game. I had to order it from a card on a cereal box. It was perfect for me, my home away from Wing Commander III. I always had it with me so I could get my space fighter gaming fix during study breaks at college or on the bus ride to and from it and breaks at work. Sadly it was only to last a few months until someone ruined it for me.

Since then the only mobile gaming I have done has been on the flip phone (my fist cell phone) I bought a year and a half ago. The java version of Zombie Infection kills both zombies and time adequately for me.

Almost forgot my my HP48GX graphing calculator back in college. I don't remember the built in game was but I did play it a few times. There were other games available for it but I never got around to getting the computer connector cable or memory cards for it so I could download them. I did attempt to make a stick figure version of Wolfenstine for it; as well as a version of Starfleet Battles and a remake of that D&D LCD game from earlier. Good thing I lost the advanced programing book or I might still be trying to get them to work.

The only retro gaming I have done is on my Atari 2600 which after 20+ years of being unused it fired up as if I had never stopped using it. It now resides in my daughter's room along with all my cartridges. It has been the only home game console we have ever had in our home. Most of our home gaming has been done computers or board games.

My Daughter: My daughter plays on whatever platform is available. Web, PC, java games on her phone, DS Lite, GBA, XBox 360, PS2, my vintage Atari 2600, whatever console is plugged whatever TV. She does not even seem to have a preferred genre; she will jump form shooters to puzzle to RTS to arcade classics to sports to RPG etc... To her its not about the platform its about its all about the game. She does favors Nintendo though.

Her path to electronic gaming began when she was a toddler and climb into the computer chair and with her near photographic memory type in the web address for her show and channels so she could play the games she saw on TV. She could not read yet but she could remember which letters were used and which order they went in even though she did not know what what each letter was. At first I thought it was auto complete doing the work for her after my wife and I had typed it in for her before or maybe she was using the bookmarks. But after watching her type in a new kids games web site that had never been to before I had to accept the truth.

"WE HAD A GAMER!!!"

She quickly racked up several single function LCD games from various sources, happy meals, cereal boxes, grab a prize machines, gifts, hell she even found a few that other kids lost. This combo of web and cheap pocket games satisfied her. Then she caught a Pokemon cartoon and Nintendo had its claws in her. She only stopped watch after they reset the characters age.

Years later her aunt took her on a trip so her cousins could see their grandparents. The grandparents gave the cousins DSs. Luckily for my daughter the grandparents remembered there was an old abandoned Gameboy Advanced they had siting about in there house and let her have it. This satisfied her for years but after a while she craved for a DS. Last summer I gave her the bad news that The DS lite was being discontinued. But her face lit up when I was able to find one for her birthday this year. She has not touched her GBA since. The only place she does not take to is her aunt's so she can maximize her time on the Wii. Surprisingly enough although she loves the Wii she has no interest in the Wii U. Unfortunately a school mate showed off his 3DS to her now she is hooked on the 3DS. She wants Kingdom Harts Dream Drop distance bad. We are not going to buy her a new handheld less than a year into her current one. We might get her an OUYA next year though, it will replace the Atari in her room (its power cord got eaten by the pets).

Hey Ars Technica, Instead of merely posting a picture of why I love handheld gaming and gaming in general and why I should win this competition I actually made a video that you can watch on youtube right here!

I still have an original Atari Lynx that I fire up occasionally! Now with my 2nd Android Smart phone, lots of fun games to play, but still Mario games are the best. My son has the 3DS and that is loads of fun when I can borrow it from him for a hour or so.

I've loved handheld gaming systems ever since the Game Gear. I never really played the original gameboy, but man did I love the Gameboy Color and up (mostly played Pokemon, I mean, who didn't?) when I was younger.

I still play some of the GBA Pokemon games on my GBA SP or DS lite, depending on my mood. Still have my PS2 (First console) and bought a GC a while back because I sold mine. I've been meaning to play TWEWY, but finding a (cheap) copy is impossible,

My first handheld was actually my little sister's. I used to play her copy of Pokemon Silver. It remains my favorite game in the franchise. I really hope they come out with a FFVI remake this generation. I haven't played it yet but it's one of the few I haven't at all.